NIC-10 Girls Basketball: East poised for dramatic rise

Thursday

Nov 21, 2013 at 11:47 AMNov 21, 2013 at 11:47 AM

By Matt TrowbridgeRockford Register Star

ROCKFORD — What do you do for an encore after your best season in 22 years?

East can’t wait to find out.

Going 8-19 may not sound like much, but that’s more wins than the E-Rabs had in their prevous five years combined (7-125). Even their 2-14 conference record topped their previous five-year total (1-79). Now it’s time to go to work on their 11-year record (13-179 in the league).

“When I took over, I figured it was going to take three years to get acclimated to things,” third-year coach Leon Smith said. “We struggled our first year, but we were young and our players had an opportunity to grow up. This year, it’s pure excitement.”

The E-Rabs had by far their most successful summer in recent years, winning two games at camps at DePaul and Wisconsin and also winning four games in the Harlem summer league.

“Before, we didn’t win any at Harlem,” Smith said. “And the games we lost, we were extremely competitive. That showed the girls we belong. And in those losses, we showed a couple of things we could tweak to make us even more competitive.”

Whatever the E-Rabs do this winter will have started in the summer.

“When I was at Boylan under Coach (Steve) Goers, he always said that players were made during the summer,” Smith said. “We had the biggest summer commitment here that we’ve had in a long time.”

The E-Rabs lack size; six of their top eight players are 5-foot-7 or shorter and their top two scorers will probably be 5-5 senior Coriesha Bailey and 5-3 sophomore R’rionna Brocks.

To compensate, East plans to run more.

“Last year, we scored in the 30s and 40s,” Smith said. “We think we can get some easy buckets by being a running team. If we get out on the run, we also have some shooters who can accomodate us.

“We believe we can finish in the top half of the conference. That’s a possibility. Get out of the basement, where we’ve been for a very long time.”